Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey Honored

The Award-Winning Whiskey Lands Top Spirits Honor at the Magazine's twenty first Renowned Wine Star Awards

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn., Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, the super-premium whiskey from Tennessee, is overjoyed to announce nowadays that they have been named Wine Enthusiast's Spirit Brand of the Year for the 2020 Wine Star Awards. The whiskey, which is the most-awarded American whiskey or bourbon of 2019 and 2020, is the first-ever spirit from Tennessee to obtain this title.

Uncle Nearest is a organization that is greater than whiskey, and has persevered to ruin obstacles in view that its inception. Launched in 2017, the manufacturer is the first in the spirit industry's records to commemorate an African-American, the first acknowledged African-American grasp distiller, Nearest Green. The company's founder and CEO Fawn Weaver is the first African-American to lead a principal spirit brand, and remaining year, Victoria Eady Butler - Nearest Green's great-great-granddaughter - was once named Uncle Nearest's Master Blender. In this position she grew to become the first African-American lady grasp blender of a main spirit brand.

In phrases of breaking barriers, 2020 has been no distinctive for the company, which operates with an all-minority board and govt management team. Uncle Nearest made headlines previously this yr when it introduced the co-creation of the Nearest & Jack Advancement Initiative, a first-of-its-kind effort to in addition variety inside the American whiskey industry. The not-for-profit initiative consists of three arms: the Nearest Green School of Distilling, the Leadership Acceleration Program (LAP) for apprenticeships, and the Business Incubation Program (BIP), targeted on imparting understanding and assets to Black entrepreneurs coming into the spirits industry.

"In recognizing Uncle Nearest as Spirit Brand of the Year, Wine Enthusiast has reiterated to the world that our work is some distance extra significant than without a doubt promoting awesome whiskey," stated Weaver. "People are regularly in awe of the strength displayed through our group participants in the area and surprise what is at the back of such passion. It's due to the fact our crew is aware of we don't seem to be simply in the whiskey-selling business, even though we do that pretty well! But rather, we are in the legacy-cementing business. We're no longer solely making sure the legacy of Nearest Green is regarded with the aid of each and every future generation, we're additionally assisting others create their very own legacies in this commercial enterprise whilst concurrently assisting to diversify the American whiskey enterprise so it extra carefully resembles America."

This yr marks the twenty first anniversary of Wine Enthusiast's Annual Wine Star Awards, honoring the men and women and corporations that make first-rate contributions to the wine and alcohol beverage world. The winners, plus specific awards for Lifetime Achievement Award and American Wine Legend, will be introduced in the magazine's Best of Year issue. Uncle Nearest used to be nominated for a spot on the acclaimed listing through Wine Enthusiast's complete media workforce and full-time contributing divisions, and awarded the pinnacle honor with the aid of the magazine's Executive Publishing crew based totally on the brand's have an effect on in the spirits category, business success, agency vision, and trendsetting.

"Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey has confirmed to be a authentic enterprise darling for greater motives than one," mentioned Chairman and Publisher of Wine Enthusiast, Adam Strum. "Its namesake is committed to Nearest Green, a previously enslaved Black man who distilled whiskey in the nineteenth century. This extremely good American backstory is matched solely through the best of the spirit itself, and Uncle Nearest has now turn out to be the fastest-growing unbiased American whiskey manufacturer in U.S. history. It is for these motives that we are extremely joyful to award Uncle Nearest the coveted Wine Star for Spirit of the Year."

Uncle Nearest will formally get hold of the Spirit Brand of the Year award at a digital tournament scheduled for January 2021. Earlier this week, the whiskey used to be additionally honored with a coveted spot on O, The Oprah Magazine's Oprah's Favorite Things listing for 2020.